OpenVAS-TryHackMe Walkthrough

5 min readAug 11, 2022

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About OpenVAS

OpenVAS is a full-featured scan engine that executes a continuously updated and extended feed of Network Vulnerability Tests (NVTs). It’s used to scan endpoints and web applications to identify and detect vulnerabilities.

OpenVAS is built off the GreenBone Vulnerability Management (GVM) solution and is only one of the appliances that are released from GreenBone.

Coming to the tasks at hand Task1 and Task2 gives a brief introduction to OpenVAS and GVM Framework Architecture.

OpenVAS is a service within a large framework of services known as Greenbone Vulnerability Management(GVM). Many components are part of the architecture for the GVM framework but can be broken down into three distinct sections: Front-End, Back-End, and vulnerability/Information feed.

To know more feel free to go to the OpenVAS room created by Cyrillic.

Task 3 Installing OpenVAS

There are different options to install OpenVAS, the method I use is to Run from Docker

The first command installs the docker and the second one pulls the docker container as well as runs the container. Once it’s complete navigate to https://127.0.0.1 in your preferred browser.

You will get a login page like this,

the default credentials are admin for both Username and Password.

Once logged into OpenVAS you would see a dashboard like this,

Task 4:Initial Configuration

Before doing anything we need to do a little bit of maintenance and configuration to get OpenVAS properly working. Begin by navigating to Scans> Tasks and clicking on the purple magic wand icon

purple magic wand

If you successfully navigated to the wizard you should see a pop-up similar to the one below

This is where you will do an initial scan against your localhost to ensure everything is properly configured. Click on Start Scan and wait for the scan to complete(might take some time, So grab a cup of coffee).

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Once completed you would get this dashboard, now navigate to Scans > Reports

and click on your newly created report from your previous task.

Task 5 Scanning Infrastructure

Deploy the machine and navigate to Scans > Tasks to create a new task

For Task5 I will be focusing on the Name, Scan Targets, Scanner Type, and Scan Config.

Name: To set the name of the scan.
Scan Targets: The targets to scan can include Hosts, Ports, and Credentials.
Scanner: By default will use OpenVAS architecture, you could also set it to any other scanner from the top-down menu.
Scan Config: OpenVAS has & different scan types you can select from

To scope, a new target navigate to the star icon next to Scan Targets to bring another popup window

The two options to configure are Name and the Hosts. Give a name you like and provide with Target IP which is the IP of the machine we deployed earlier.